


Steel Walls

by WindraDeadZed



Series: New World Order [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Feral ghouls always seems like rage zombies to me anyway so, Lots of dialogue, Nora has that firehouse sass, Nora is kind of a flirt in general, She kind of flip flops, Some Brotherhood spoilers, Some platonic fluff for now, lots of banter, non-canon, playful banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-24 03:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8354341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindraDeadZed/pseuds/WindraDeadZed
Summary: Takes place before the Memory Den quest.Their path to Diamond City diverted courtesy of some Deathclaws, Nick Valentine and Nora make a roundabout through Cambridge and decide to hit Goodneighbor straight away when a distress signal intercepts Nora's Pip-Boy.





	1. Impromptu Meet and Greet

The first time they'd ever met was ... engaging, to say the very least. Not at all enthralling - but nothing done in the thicket of combat ever truly was. Not unless you were one of _those types_.   
  
Paladin Danse was not one of _those types_.

How the first wave of ferals struggled at their defenses, faltering betwixt a combination of well-placed booby traps and gunfire. Fragmentation mine after fragmentation mine tripped, exploded ... Disembodied screeches mirroring frustration and endless hunger rather than pain ...   
  
It was a small entourage of undead. festering abominations. At first. But there were always more ... always _so many more_.  
  
They were cajoled into action by the starving creels of their felled brethren and an artillery hailstorm. What started as five became fifteen, then twenty-seven. The horde took formation. Low grows and death rattles tore into high-pitched squeals at the sight and sound and _smell_ of live human flesh. Barricades were overwhelmed. The ferals pushed and toppled over sand bags, falling over one another before rolling onto the broken asphalt: a torrential high-tide of writhing, rotting limbs heavy with the putrid stench of radioactive death and disease.

He and Knight Rhys did one hell of a job holding back the tsunami for as long as they could with as little resources as they had. By the time Scribe Haylen joined the fight after airing their distress broadcast on repeat, they were becoming swiftly overwhelmed. Peering beyond the sea of dead was no less daunting than gazing beyond the Atlantic Ocean's vast horizon. A horrendous sensation of terror settled as a seed in the pit of his gut and began to root. If they didn't vacate, they would die. They would die and be _eaten_.  
  
"Fall back!" Danse shouted, his orders reflected by the metal chestpiece of his power armor but drowning in the wallowing drone of feral ghouls. "INTO THE POLICE STATION! **_NOW_**!"  
  
They had tried.  
  
But the three of them were a sandbar to a wave of monsters. The dozens upon dozens approached them, split in two, moved to surround them and closed in. Flanked. Cornered. _Trapped_. No way out. No way but **through**.

Danse lowered his shoulder and plowed through them in a straight line. The idea had been to knock the ghouls away to clear a path for Rhys and Haylen to follow. No sooner did he charge than he was overtaken. Fragile limbs stretched thin with dried leather flesh sprung atop his T-60 power armor. Crooked fingers tipped with long, jagged nails clawed at the voice spaces between his carapace and joints. They reached for his face. For every one that Danse swatted away, another two took its place. If it hadn't been for his armor's ability to endure incredible loads, the flood of ghouls would have easily dragged forced him to the ground.  
  
Rhys' sharp, painful shout bleated through the crowd. A scent of iron - a splash of red - and the ghouls became a frenzied school of bloodlusty sharks.   
  
"Rhys!"   
  
From the corners of his eyes, Danse could see Haylen turning back into the thicket where the ghouls churned and rolled, and he fought to join her. Rising columns of smoke from the barricades bore the tale of defeated turrets, battered into submission. Their last energy cell had been drained - the very last was used to tear a laer through a reaver's skull not one minute beforehand. What ammunition remained was inside the station.  
  
All they could hope to do now was shield one another for as long as possible ... maybe make it inside the building, but more likely die fighting like the good soldiers they were.  
  
Danse thought he heard a voice ... not Rhys, not Haylen, but ...   
  
He came upon Haylen. She was fending the beasts off with all of her might, bearing the scratches of her labor. Rhys was crouched behind her. One hand was on his hip, the other drawing a switchblade that did naught but add injury to the knees of those ghouls closest. And Danse ... Danse became the tank. He hulked down on those who would come before him. Bodies were throws. Heads smashed with a flash of his metallic fist.   
  
But they kept coming. And coming. And _coming_.  
  
There was a crack like rolling thunder - loud and obnoxious. A ghoul somewhere went down. Another crack. Another kill. Several mutilated faces turned towards the noise. Then their bodies shifted and their trajectories changed. About ten lost interest in their current prize to pursue something just out of sight.  
  
A voice again. Audible now. Female. Surprisingly robust despite the chaos. " _Nick_!"  
  
Something sprinted past the gaps formed by the dissipating mob - a fedora tipped somewhat askew, the ripped edges of a fluttering coat, two _glowing_ things. "Over here!" it called, voice masculine and gravelly like sandpaper. "C'mon, ya nasty cannibals!"  
  
The ferals were diverging. A great deal of them split off to the left, chasing the man in the long coat. They were greeted with several brilliant flashes of blue electricity, arcing high into the sky and crashing back down again. Tendrils of lightning twisted about their ankles, hitching about their withered bodies until the muscles seized, spasmed, and stopped functioning altogether. _Pulse grenades_.   
  
Those scurrying up Danse's armor began to pool at his feet. They grappled his ankles - accidentally or _intentionally_ (if they were capable of strategic thought) tripping him up. He fell face-first and they swarmed him - gnawing his metal shell, prowling the armor for weak spots. If they were to find the fusion core, let alone figure out what to do with it ...   
  
A ghoul pooled in behind Haylen, inadvertently shoving her forward and off balance. She vanished with a shriek into the fog of grabbing hands while the interrupting monster descended on the preoccupied Rhys, jowels parted, pinkish sputum coating blackened teeth ...  
  
Scorned fury came in the form of a black and brown all-furred hound. Bared fangs sunk into mottled, leathery-textured skin. The ghoul shrieked and Rhys, drawn back into the reality of what was going on _right behind him_ , pitched into a forward roll. His attacked reached first for the Knight, then for the dog. Claws raked against the bristling muzzle. The dog did not release its grip - rather, it bore down until bones crunched and snapped, then dragged the flailing thing into the crowd.  
  
Several ferals dove for the dog but were knocked back by the swinging of something fierce, heavy, edged, and red. Flecks of crimson splashed across the air, congealed in dark pools dimly lit by the coming dusk. Limbs were detached, haphazardly flying. A segment of skull equipped with a sunken eyeball. Half a mandible, still knotted with part of the maxillae, jaws not quite getting the memo and gnashing furiously at nothing.

And then there was white.  
  
She'd come in at the perfect moment. Limber limbs all outstretched and taut, silhouetted just perfectly against the fleeing sun. Hair so long and pale that it appeared white with skin to match. For an instance, Danse thought he might have been staring at a vengeful poltergeist - something otherworldly that _didn't quite belong_ , until he noticed the smears of old blood on her blue and yellow jumpsuit (already torn in several places), globules of flesh that didn't belong to her sticking en masse on her arms and torso and legs ... thickly coating the pick-headed axe that continued to drive home into the unwitting bodies of those walking corpses. Fierce. A tigress.

The dog returned, staying by her side this time with heckles raised and sharpened fangs glistening scarlet.   
  
As Danse clambered to his feet, he took note of Haylen - somewhat petrified behind the mysterious stranger. By the time the Paladin managed to make his way to Rhys, the Scribe bolted back to the police station. The door barely had time to slam shut before she was out again. Pitched underneath each arm were energy cells - two a piece but enough to last them long enough ... long enough ...  
  
Rhys swung several more feeble swings at passing ghouls before his exhausted grunts signaled the last of his strenuous activity. Danse slipped his hands beneath the prone man's arms, lifting him slightly (in spite of the man's pained gasps) and dragged him to the station stairs. Jumpsuit Woman took her cue from this, positioning herself at Rhys' feet and following with her back to them. Whenever a ghoul wandered too close, a good portion of them would get lobbed off. Her precision with an edged weapon was notable, considering how each strike burrowed into the templar or parietal regions of their crania. Her furred mongrel dispatched the crawlers, and Long Coat trailed after with several feet separating him from the woman, using ranged attacks from his pipe pistol to dissuade any ferals loping over the barricades. Three companions, all functioning in tandem with one another.  
  
Danse dropped Rhys beside the door without much grace of comfort. Given their position, that was acceptable. A quick reload of Righteous Authority and he was ringing lasers through the bogies' heads. Haylen appeared at his side a moment later, resuming a crouching position for better accuracy and doing the same.   
  
When their final wave of attackers breached the barrier to clatter only for their assault to be snuffed before a claw could be swung, the police station entrance looked like it had been the stage for a genocide. Danse was sweating. Haylen was panting. Rhys was bleeding. The dog took pause to lick the blood out of his fur. Jumpsuit Woman dropped the axe to lean on her knees, heaving.  
  
The only one out of all of them that didn't appear winded in the _slightest_ was Long Coat. He approached the woman with concern twisting his strange-colored lips. Left arm outstretched, sickeningly pale fingers (had he just crawled out a coffin?) clasping her shoulder.

"You alright, Doll?"

To which she nodded, unable to catch her breath enough to form words.

"No bites?"

A head shake.

Long Coat brushed a chunk of flesh from her arm and gave her a prolonged once-over. Scanning for injuries, most likely. Danse began to approach, wiping away the moisture from his eyebrows, when Long Coat's chin angled in just the right position for the Paladin to understand what those _glowing yellow things_ he saw earlier were.  
  
"God _damn_ it!" Danse spat. In a heartbeat, Righteous Authority was level with the android's head. Long Coat's flickering yellow oculars met his. " _Synth_."  
  
Haylen gasped. She drew her weapon on the faux representation of a man. A _click_ to his side assured Danse that Rhys had reloaded his weapon and was doing the same. Long Coat's arms slowly drifted into the air.  
  
"Whoah, whoah," stated that aged, haggard voice. It wasn't pleading. Not frantic. _Calm_. As if it had seen and dealt with this kind of scenario so many times before. "No need for that. I'm not here to hurt you - "  
  
Jumpsuit Woman's eyes averted to the scene. It took less time for her to grasp the handle of a pistol holstered mid-thigh than it took to blink. (Had she always had the gun? Why hadn't she _used_ it during the fight? Why didn't he notice it before?) The flash of danger in her transfixed bright teal eyes and the way her thin lips tugged back to flash a pearlescent grimace their way immediately transfigured her into something else. Neither poltergeist nor tigress nor fatigued woman. This was a wolf in disguise, and the bristling mongrel at her knees was her ward.  
  
Their weapons immediately focused on her.  
  
It was a bad idea to distract their aim from the main problem at hand. Long Coat coul have easily moved in on them. Instead he sidestepped to conceal Jumpsuit Woman's body with his own. He was tall enough to conceal her in whole. "There's _no need_ for that."  
  
"Shut your mouth, damned _abomination_ ," snapped Haylen. Danse felt a surge of pride. Long Coat's mouth gave a disapproving twitch.   
  
"Nick ... " Jumpsuit peeked above the android's shoulder.   
  
"Don't," 'Nick' half-turned his head to look at her without really taking his eyes off Danse, "draw on them, Nora. The Brotherhood's the last one we want to tangle with right now." His tone unnaturally even versus the woman's quivering rage one. Fire and water. The android probably owed it to the fact that he was manufactured.   
  
Sighting their lasers on the forehead of 'Nick', Haylen's finger drifted to the trigger. "Sir?" she addressed Danse. "Requesting permission to fire."  
  
"What the _hell_?!" Nora hissed.  
  
"In a moment, Scribe. I have some questions."  
  
Nora rounded Nick's side. The synth's metallic hand latched onto her wrist and held tight. " _Fire_? On _us_? For _helping_ you?!"  
  
Danse took a step towards her. It was meant to be an intimidating gesture. He easily towered over them in his T-60 suit. And while Nick certainly looked nervous, Nora appeared to become more vexed. "You could easily be Institute spies." That word struck some kind of reaction in the woman. She looked like she'd been slapped in the face. "Come here under the guide of bringing us aid - and then what? Villainous subterfuge? Kill us when our guard is lowered? Replace us with synthetic dopplegangers to attack the Brotherhood from within?"  
  
" _You're_ the ones who set up a distress signal!"  
  
"If we were Institute spies," Nick stated, mellow in his resolve despite the worry etched into the lines of his face, "wouldn't it be ... _detrimental_ to have _one_ spy be an early model synth like your's truly?" His humanoid hand splayed out above his chest. "That'd be one helluvan idiotic move."  
  
"And yet, here you are."  
  
"This is _stupid_ ," snarled Nora, wrenching free from Nick's grasp to approach the first step. They were eye-to-knee. Danse could easily kick her where he stood. He vouched instead to press Righteous Authority's muzzle against her widow's peak. Nick visibly tensed, alloy teeth grinding. "We didn't _have_ to come here, you know. Could've left you to get ripped to shreds. But _damn_ me n' Nick for having any sense of _compassion_."  
  
Haylen's weapon drooped. Was she hesitating? "Why were you here, then?" she queried. "I put that distress signal out less than ten minutes ago ... Within two minutes of its first repeat, you come waltzing in. It's like ... like you were _right there_ , just _waiting_ for an opportunity and - "  
  
"Cutting through Cambridge on our way to Boston." Nick could not tear his illuminated orbs away from Danse's gun against Nora's skull. "Were gonna head straight south from Sanctuary Hills, but, ah, had to detour 'round some migrating Deathclaws. Lucky for you. Not so peachy for us."  
  
"Just crossed the city limit when my Pip-Boy picked up your signal."  
  
All eyes glanced the gear on her left arm.   
  
"Sanctuary Hills?" Rhys repeated.  
  
Haylen blinked. "The Minutemen encampment?"  
  
The discovery of their recognition had Nick nodding enthusiastically. "Heard of 'em?"  
  
"Civilians donning weapons and pre-war hats to protect their fellow man," Danse mused. "An honorable feat befit for a military faction. A surprising one at that, considering how poorly armed they are."  
  
"We make do," Nora bit. Her eyelids had lowered, giving her the aura of somebody battle-worn and tired, but still geared to battle.   
  
Paladin Danse stared. " _Why_ were you at Sanctuary Hills? Has the Institute stooped so low as to seek control of the few people who protect the Commonwealth?"  
  
Nick's mouth quirked into something of a knowing grin as Nora leered on, unabashed, and uttered ominously, "Probably because I'm their General." Watching the shock evolve around the Brotherhood's face allowed the red rush of fury blotching her cheeks to fade slowly back to a pale pinkish hue. "Now if you'd be so kind as to lower your weapons, we aren't here to fight."  
  
"Just as soon as we dispatch the synth. Then we are going to have a nice, long chat."  
  
"Nah, see, that's a _bad_ idea." Had Jumpsuit acquired fur, it would have been standing on end all over again. The rage flashed against her high cheekbones. "He's my friend."  
  
Nick perked up. "And this spitfire's my partner-in-training." He frowned then - mock disapproval tinged with real fret. "Though a bit headstrong for her own good."  
  
"Wait." Distraction was the number one killer of naive Commonwealthers. Nora's head jerked and she offered the private eye a lopsided smirk. "I'm your probie?"  
  
An almost affable sigh from lungs that needn't air. "If the shoe fits ... "  
  
Nora's mouth opened for another quip, but Danse's sharp holler demanded - and received - their rapt attention. " **ENOUGH**." Righteous Authority pinpointed Nick. The Paladin's finger eagerly awaited a trigger squeeze. "This **_abomination_** is one of the very _reason_ we are in the Commonwealth in the _first place_. The Institute is a dangerous conglomeration of man's perversion of technology - "  
  
"Nick?" Nora's fury intermingled with a child-like innocence. "A pervert? Is this true?"  
  
The android pinched the bridge of his nose: agitation or amusement? "Got me there, Doll."  
  
"Gasp! For shame, Mister Valentine!"  
  
Danse felt flames consume his features. This Vault Dweller was jumping from having the tenacious viciousness of a hungry mountain lion to the domesticated curiousity of a kitten with a ball of yarn. And she didn't appear to take his speech with the tiniest amount of credibility. Was she dismantling his gusto?  
  
Haylen appeared to think so. The Scribe covered her mouth to dispel a giggle.

Rhys mirrored Danse's displeasure. His wrist pivoted to Nora's head and he twitched. "A laser for one who cohorts with the Institute's creations appears to be a prime solution - "  
  
"And murder the Minutemen General?" Nick's warning speared through Rhys' threats. "They may be small in number, but right now so are you. They'd swarm you quicker than bloatflies on a carcass."  
  
"Our brothers and sisters will come - "  
  
"From that airship? Do you really think they'd come to help you? Do they even know you're _here_?"  
  
"Of course! They must be sending reinforcements any minute now!"  
  
Nora was a two-sided coin. Maybe a gemini. Maybe a pisces. Maybe something else. Gone was the innocence. She was no armed with the determined recklessness, that venom-tipped tongue ... "I'm gonna go ahead and call your bluff," she growled, fingers spasming and aching for the feel of her pistol's handle - or the axe's grip - but failing to reach. "I saw vertibirds on that ship. _Escorting_ that ship. _Vertibirds_ that could be here in a moment's notice. If they'd noticed you, they'd have been here by now. So who came to save you? Your brothers? Nope. _Us_. A General and a Synth."  
  
"Synth _Detective_ ," Nick corrected derisively.  
  
"Synth Detective." She cocked her head, smacking her lips together. "Jackass."  
  
The android scoffed.  
  
" _Basically_ , you shoot Nick - and that won't happen 'cause I won't give you the chance - then I shoot you. Then there's a big fight. And the Minutemen come rolling in. And there'll be nothing but a big stain where you guys used to be."  
  
The android stepped carefully around heated words and raised weapons with his dialogue. "What she's sayin' is ... ya don't wanna get into a scrap with a group that's dedicated themselves to helpin' the Commonwealth's folks." Metallic fingers reached for something in his coat pocket. He thought better of it as Danse's scoped his movements with Righteous Authority's muzzle. "We might be flyin' different flags, but we're fighting for the same team. Essentially."  
  
Danse wasn't sold. "We can _not_ be certain of your intentions," he grunted. Uncertainty hung in his chest like a wet towel, the dampness overtaking the surroundings with humidity. "As a synth, you are undoubtedly associated with the Institute. And if you've, as you claim, _partnered up_ with the Minutemen General, then it is simply safer to assume the Institute has seized control of the Minutemen and thus, the Commonwealth is in the final throes of a takeover." It would be safer to kill them both. Rhys must have come to the same conclusion. The Knight subtly nodded.  
  
But the _detective_ ground his teeth. "The Institute tossed my sorry hide to the garbage a long time ago." Though his appearance reeked of frustration, he was careful to keep his tone level. "You've got it _wrong_. We're not with the Institute. We're in the process of chasing them _down_."  
  
"And what evidence do yo have to support this unwieldy claim?"  
  
"Me," Nora boomed. Her voice was suddenly low, heavy, and sad. "They kidnapped my baby."   
  
__________  
  
  
Knight Rhys voiced the most reluctance at allowing them passage into the station. He was joined briefly by Haylen when Nick walked through the door. If Nora's veiled threat in the form of her glowering expression didn't shut them up immediately, Paladin Danse's demand to settle down certainly did the trick.  
  
Rhys slid against a wall until his rump hit the floor. Haylen was upon him in an instant, tending to the horrendous bite marring his flesh just above the pelvic girdle. Watching the Scribe stitch his wound sent shivers down Nora's spine. The General felt her arms and legs for a bite or scratch she might not have noticed in the heat of combat.   
  
"Does a bite turn you into one of them?" she asked Nick when the detective turned her head for a better look at her head bandage. "Or a scratch? Is it a virus? Does it spread?"  
  
"You've watched one too many horror flicks back in the day, Doll," Valentine jeered.   
  
"I always _was_ a film buff."  
  
"That so? Well, ya might be in luck. Sure we got some old film reels sittin' around at the Agency that need a dustin' off. Maybe we can hijack Starlight Drive-In after we get your son back and make a night of it."  
  
She eyed him coyly, her smile broad and real. "Sounds like a date, Valentine."  
  
His chest rolled with an amused scoff that quickly melted into sympathy as his steel claws brushed the gauze. Nora hissed. Nick drew back, hints of red splotching his silver digits. Carefully, slowly, the detective again reached for her bandages, peeling them backwards with relative haste so the adhesive didn't sting on the way off. "You ripped your stitches."  
  
"Well hell, they were bothering me anyway."  
  
Scribe Haylen patted the floor beside her. "Have a seat, General," she offered, sounding so much more sweet than she had been outside. Did donning the title of the Minutemen's leader truly change their opinion of her that much? "Once I get done with this sourpuss' wound, I'll have a look."  
  
The sole survivor exchanged a slightly baffled expression with her robotic companion. As she took a seat, she told Haylen, "Please, just call me Nora."  
  
"Out of the question. Your title is part of who you are - a symbol dictating the amount of respect you are deserving. It's a show of your rank, your prestige, your _experience_."  
  
"A title is just a fancy name," Nora muttered. "You don't need to be a soldier or a paladin or a captain to have respect from your fellow man."  
  
" _She_ certainly doesn't, least of all," snapped Rhys. He slid partially backwards as Nora sat cross-legged beside him.   
  
She was partially taken aback, but not wholly surprised. "Feisty ... " A plethora of indignant, angry, and insulting replies cascaded into her mind. Nora silenced the lot of them. _Don't shit where you eat_ , she thought to herself. _In this case, don't shit where you've just been spared a few bullet wonds. Lasers. Laser wounds.  
  
_ Nora was beginning to wonder if the Knight's ego had been so damaged that he was willing to take petty jabs at everybody. "And that ... that _thing_ shouldn't be in here." A long, gnarled finger pointed at Nick. "A _machine_ shouldn't be capable of _free will_."  
  
"Why?" Nick bit back, somehow more affronted by that personal insult than the accusations flung at them outside. "Somebody take _your's_ away?"  
  
"That is more than enough." Danse's voice bellowed from the opposing side of the room. He'd been pacing back and forth in his power armor, each footfall heavy and earth-shaking. With his declaration, the paladin was facing them. Rhys, both castrated and irritated, glanced away. He could not meet his superior's eyes. "Rhys - for the moment, these two are guests. Guests that we will not _seek_ to _fight_. Tame your nerves and keep your tone in check."  
  
Nora beamed. Haylen raised a brow at her.   
  
"And _you_." Danse squared up with Nick. It would have been funny on any other day. The paladin was much taller than the detective ... but power armor added an easy foot to one's height (as she had found out from her experience in Concord). If the man stepped out of his protective metal shell, Nora was certain Nick would tower over him. She herself was only an inch shy of being eye-level with him, making the android an easy six feet tall.   
  
A tense silence fell between the two. Nick stared on - quiet, patient, probably biting his tongue to the best of his abilities. And the paladin ... he shifted uneasily from one steel-enclosed foot to the next. This probably wasn't a situation he'd ever counted on being in. The Brotherhood of Steel ... Nick had filled her in about what they were - _who_ they were - during their trek back from Fort Hagen (mostly to keep her mind cartwheeling into insanity). They were the Nazis of the modern world. Technology vultures with a hatred of anything that wasn't human. And those that _were_ human were very well protected, granted they were regulated with pseudo-military laws.  
  
_"They don't exactly welcome new technology with open arms," he'd confided in her. "Guess I shouldn't ask for a hug then."_  
  
"You ... are an unfamiliarity," Danse conceded. "On any other grounds, I would have ordered you killed."  
  
Nick tucked a cigarette between his cracked and scarred lips. "Glad you hold me in so high regard," ran his sardonic musings.   
  
"You're here only because that Vault Dweller vouched for you - a decision I'm not quite sure was the right one. Tread carefully. If I deem either one of you to be an immediate threat to me or my crew ... regardless of what repercussion may come, neither of you will leave here alive."  
  
Nora met his glowing stare. She could not read his expression - Nick's synthetic flesh was so inhumanly stiff that the tiniest tweak of a servos would go almost unnoticed. She hadn't been around him long enough to understand his body language and what they meant. But the detective unveiled his lighter, ducked his chin to catch the flame, and stood back with a slow drag. Smoke billowed from the holes under his ears.   
  
"Understood."  
  
Nora didn't like that sense of foreboding.  
  
___________  
  
  
An hour later, with Dogmeat's head resting in her lap, Nora traced a finger over Haylen's handiwork. "That's some fine stitching," she admired genuinely. "My assumption here is that you've had some extensive medical training. Would I be right?"  
  
"That's correct, General." The Scribe was wiping the needle with some kind of disinfectant that neither looked or smelled like alcohol. "Truth be told, I wanted to become a Lancer Knight. But I've always been more book savvy than my peers ... and a lot more comfortable around blood and viscera."  
  
"Your bedside manner might have something to do with that," Nora grinned. She met the Scribe's gaze and was both surprised and relieved to see her expression returned in kind. Lowering her voice, the Vault Dweller added, "And honestly, you're a lot sweeter than these other two."  
  
Haylen touched her own shoulder and looked away, immediately bashful but ... grateful? "Please don't judge them too quickly," the Scribe ushered silently. "The two of them have seen more than their fair share of terror." Dosed to the eyeballs with Med-X for his pain, Rhys had zoned off and was snoring surprisingly softly for a man. Haylen glanced at him with soft-eyed sympathy. "Rhys ... well, he respects you the more you show him what you are, who you are, and how willing you are to go the extra mile. Paladin Danse behaves similarly."  
  
"Sounds like I'll just have to prove myself to them." Nora's shoulders shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time. Probably won't be the last."  
  
"It's ... going to be a little more complicated than that for you, considering ... "

Haylen didn't need to voice it for Nora to understand the referral. He might not have been standing in the room with them, but Valentine's presence was indicated by the lingering scent of dissipating smoke. The detective was floating around in an adjoining corridor somewhere. Distant, but not daring to stray too far from Nora while in strange company. _For my protection, or his?  
  
_ "He's harmless," she countered impulsively, frowning. "Wouldn't harm a fly. bloatfly. Scratch that. We've both killed bloatflies."  
  
Haylen became immediately miffed. "I'm being _serious_. Do you really understand ... Have you any _idea_ what synths are capable of?"  
  
She thought about the First Generation Synths that defended Kellogg and gulped. "Same thing as any human with a gun is capable of, I'd reckon."  
  
The Scribe's voice dropped, as if terrified Nick would come prowling up behind them to eavesdrop. _Given his profession, he probably is right now. Just ... not making it obvious._ "It's _different_ than that. And more ... my god, do you even _know_ what the Institute's been up to? Above and beyond the kidnapping of your son - and again, I'm really _sorry_ for the loss of your husband and ... but ... The stories. The kidnapping. There's so much _more_ to it. The CPG and the Broken Mask - "  
  
"Broken Mask?"  
  
"General Nora," Danse broke through their conversation, once again from across the room. "May I have a word?"  
  
Nora looked at Haylen. The Scribe retracted back into her thoughts, mindlessly thumbing through her satchel of medical supplies. Rhys was dead asleep. The Vault Dweller glimpsed this way and that anxiously for any sign of Nick Valentine, and was rewarded by the glimmer of his citrine glow-eyes disappearing up the staircase and out of sight.  
  
"Sure ... "   
  
Dogmeat didn't want to move, but did so with great reluctance and a rolling groan. Nora's ambling gait was excessively awkward initially, considering the tingling sensation plaguing her sleeping muscles, but she was able to stand before Danse ... and felt consumed by his shadow, intimidated by his power armor. A cold feeling settled in her back, spread out to entangle her ribs and slide beneath her shoulder blades.   
  
"Paladin Danse?"A lump formed in her throat. She swallowed around it. _Why are you afraid **now** when you weren't before?_  
  
His manner was business-as-usual, matter-of-factly, and wholly unemotional. "I've been trying to send a distress call to my superiors," he informed her with the stoic voice of a man commanding his cronies. "But the signal's too weak to reach them."  
  
"Sir?" Haylen called. "I-if I may?"  
  
He turned to her. "Proceed, Haylen."  
  
The Scribe cleared her throat. "I've modified the radio tower on the roof of the police station, but I'm afraid it just isn't enough. What we need is something that will boost the signal."  
  
"Our target is ArcJet Systems," continued Danse. "And it contains the technology we need. A Deep Range Transmitter. We infiltrate the facility, secure the transmitter, and bring it back here."  
  
Nora about did a doubletake. " _We_?"  
  
"So what do you say?" He wasn't quite smiling. If anything, Danse's face became more ... _preserved_. "You willing to lend the Brotherhood of Steel a hand? Your ... _friend_ is welcome to join us, if it so chooses."  
  
_It_. A quiet, simmering rage boiled just under the surface, but it was nothing akin to the alarm bells that were going crazy inside her yammering heart, clanging against her skull. " I ... "  
  
"Consider this a trial run." He was picking up on her insecurity. "If you help us with this ... and there are no _complications_ ... then I will begin to truly take you on your word that you are, indeed, allies and not enemies of the Brotherhood of Steel."  
  
"Will you do that for both of us?"  
  
"Indeed." His thick, bushy eyebrows met together in the center of his forehead. "I will, however, warn you in advance. Institute Synths are known to ravage locations notable for their technology. There is a high probability that we will encounter several of their machinations while there. Personally ... " There was an edge to his voice that Nora didn't like. "I have witnessed somebody, today, befriend a synth. I am eager to see if you are also willing to dispatch them."  
  
Nora bit her lip.  
  
__________  
  
"Nick?"  
  
While she couldn't find him on the second floor, Dogmeat's nose indicated that he wasn't far away at all. In this case, Nora didn't really need the pooch's snout. The shoe impressions left in the police station's accumulated dust was enough to lead her in the right direction.   
  
He was leaning against the third floor roof access. The tobacco of his cigarette had long since burned away, leaving naught but the filter clenched between his alabaster-painted teeth. He rolled something yellow and white between his long steel fingers, only looking up from the object when Nora advanced upon him. His glowering stare was mildly reproachful and she felt scorned for even looking his way.   
  
Dogmeat senses none of this. The German Shepherd whined at Nick's hip until the detective caved in with an affectionate scratch behind the ears.   
  
Nora hesitated. She watched his fingers fidget with his procured item. _A holotape_. "Whatcha got there?" she asked, keen to break the uneasy quiet between them.  
  
"Ancient history." She wondered if Nora had stumbled upon some sacred relic not meant for the eyes of the living, for Nick stuffed the holotape in his jacket pocket so quick that she couldn't even glimpse the scrawled handwriting decorating its front. "For another time. Maybe."   
  
They stood like that for so long the dust began to resettle, with Nick against the door and Nora propping herself along the wall. Dogmeat sat and panted, licking his lips.  
  
When Nick finally pulled the butt from his mouth to replace it with a fresh cancer stick, Nora blurted, "I'm going with Danse."  
  
"To ArcJet?"  
  
"I knew you were listening."  
  
His pale human-ish hand tipped the fedora downwards. "I _am_ a detective, thank you very much." The gold-plated lighter snapped open. "So, we heading out now?"  
  
Nora gulped. " _I'm_ heading out, yeah."  
  
The lighter flipped shut.  
  
One deep breath. Then two. Why did she feel like she was doing something ... _bad_? "Nick - "  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why ... what?"  
  
"Why help _them_?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because they're genocidal maniacs." There was no chipper note to his voice. No glimmer of a smile to his facial features. Just a cold, hard, blank stare. The kind a judge gave when leering down at a criminal. "They kill indiscriminately. Maybe you're a ghoul. Or a super mutant. Don't matter if you've done good by 'em - yer still an abomination in the eyes of the Brotherhood, and all that does is lead to a shallow grave, if they think yer worthy enough for a grave at all." His gaze was unwavering. Nora struggled to maintain eye contact. "That treatment goes for synths, too. If you're getting mixed up with them - "  
  
Realization dawned like a napalm strike. " _Jesus_ , Nick, this isn't some kind of convoluted scheme to betray your trust and kill everybody who isn't human," Nora rose to her own defense. "We ... we _help_ people, don't we? And Danse's crew needs _help_. They're a damn bunch of stray birds split off from their flock. That's it. That's _all_."  
  
"If they set up that radio tower, get the Prydwen's attention to send reinforcements - "  
  
"In the grand scheme of things, wouldn't it be better to just _give them aid_? Shit, they're probably gonna wind up flagging down the Prydwen one way or another. If it was us that helped 'em, they'll remember it. Maybe. Hopefully." Nora grit her teeth. "Make us less of a target?"  
  
Nick kept aiming to light his smoke, but he kept getting distracted from it with other trains of thought. "That sounds an awful lot like wishful thinking ... "  
  
"They've already got some kind of preconceived idea of what the Commonwealth's like, probably. Nick, if we help them we're showing them we're _not_ some kind of savages and ... " She trailed off, her mind a buzz of confusion and mixed feelings. "If we ... if we just leave them hanging, then how different are we from them? Because they're the Brotherhood, we're gonna bail on them in their time of need? What's that say about us?"  
  
Valentine didn't answer. Not for a long time.   
  
After two whole minutes, he slowly pulled the cigarette from his mouth and repacked it. "You're right," he resigned. "You're right."  
  
"You're damn right I'm right. Right?"  
  
The barest flash of a smile embroidered itself upon his lips. "Why don't you want me to come?"  
  
"That's, well ... " Her shoulder was growing stiff. Nora stretched the limb out and swiveled the joint. "Doesn't it seem kind of, ahm ... well ... We're going into a place with a lot of Institute Synths. Like the friendlies we met at Fort Hagen." No amount of smooth talking could mask her sarcasm. "It just feels ... opportunistic. Suppose Danse shoots you because he 'thought you were one of them'."  
  
Nick raised a finger. "Well, _technically_ \- "  
  
"You're not," warned Nora. "Nowhere near. Not even close. Don't even." More seriously, she concluded with, "I don't want you to - " _Get killed? Leave me alone? Die? Vanish from my life forever?_ " - go all stone dead on me - "  
  
"And for the record, that _doesn't_ make it all hunky-dory for you to go steppin' in front of a gun like that - "  
  
"Says the toaster who did the same thing - "  
  
" _My_ mug can handle a bullet hole - "  
  
"But _I_ like your mug too much to see it get all ripped up more." He blinked. She socked him softly in the arm. "You're my _friend_ , asshole."  
  
"It could be a trap for you, y'know," he spoke after a moment of reeling. "They could kill you with 'friendly fire' and none would be the wiser. Especially me."  
  
"No ... you'd know, and don't think I haven't thought about it." Nora huffed a breath, trying to alleviate the weight in her chest. "That's why Dogmeat's going with you." At his incredulous response, she responded with, "In case something happens to me, he can sniff me out. Besides which, I don't want him getting hurt ... And ... I don't want you staying here either. In case Haylen or Rhys ... " A pause. "Actually, I don't think Haylen would do anything. It's Rhys I'm worried about."  
  
"You're suggesting a meeting place."  
  
"Yeah ... "  
  
Nick thumbed his chin. Dogmeat whined. "How much do you remember of pre-bomb Boston?"  
  
"Considering I _grew up_ here, I'd say I'm pretty good."   
  
"There's a bridge ... Directly south from here. The one we were gonna cross to hit Goodneighbor. It's in shambles, though. Boat hit it way back when. Think it's been used as a raider outpost here lately. Dogmeat and i'll stick around there and wait."  
  
Relief washed over her. "Alright," Nora sighed. "Sounds good."  
  
"Come back in one piece, because you an' me need to have a chat."  
  
"A chat?" she queried, surprised. "Oh shit, what did I do wrong?"  
  
Nick laughed. "Nothin' like that, Doll.."  
  
Her eyes twinkled with humor. "Is it another lecture?"  
  
To which he tilted his cranium and hummed a non-definitive answer nonchalantly. Nora giggled, socked him in the arm one more time, and turned to leave. She didn't make it past the first step when he caught her arm with metal fingers.  
  
"One more thing."  
  
"Mmm?"  
  
"24 hours." Straight-faced. Ernest. Dangerous. "I'm waiting 24 hours. Not a minute longer. If I don't see you by then, I'm comin' to get you."  
  
There was ... a _thing_ in his vocalization that performed two functions. It filled her with a heartwarming confidence. And it made her feel sorry for anybody that might cross his path if it came down to brass tacks.   
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


 


	2. Short Fuse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're straying back into the realm of flashbacks now, folks.
> 
> Every time the point-of-view changes to first-person, it's Nora recounting her past. Before the war. Bits and pieces of it will be added, spaced in different chapters, different parts ...

They took the night to stock up on supplies and prepare for the trip ahead. Nick Valentine and Dogmeat were gone before dawn's breaking light and to Nora's relief, neither Rhys nor Danse nor Haylen inquired about their whereabouts.

Within the first ten minutes of hoofing it to ArcJet, she and Danse fell under the scrupulous eye of three raiders. Two settlers kneeled before them. Hands bound behind their backs. The gargantuan corpse of a loaded pack brahmin splayed slightly off the road, oozing great globules of blood from a hole fitted between their necks' junction.  
  
Nora'd held back with her fireaxe in hand. She lowered it slightly, gripping the head on the cup formed by her curled fingers and thumb. If they didn't attack - if they approached _rationally_ \- maybe there was a chance of negotiation. A good hostage situation ended well only when the survivors were released and their captors apprehended (or in this case, let _go_ to live another day). No bloodshed. Everybody went home.  
  
And to her credit, the raiders regarded her with a kind of curiosity. She studied their faces: all baggy eyes and gaunt cheekbones. Their arms were thinner than average. Lanky leather armor hung from their emaciated bodies like tinsel off a Charlie Brown tree. Starving, clearly. Maybe driven to this point by necessity. It gave Nora something to work with ... something that gave her hope.  
  
_"Ya gotta think about what ya wanna say," Valentine had educated her after talking down a group of scavvers from blowing their brains out. "Stay calm. Won't be easy 'cause ninety percent of the time they're ready to gun ya down at a moment's notice."_  
  
One of the settlers - a young woman in her mid-twenties, perhaps - gazed upon her wistfully. Big bright brown eyes widened. Glistened. Terror. _Save us_. And she would. She _could_. Nora opened her mouth, words of gentle recompense filtering to the tip of her tongue.  
  
_"Don't be authoritative. Ya gotta remember, a lot of these numbskulls **despise** authority. Gotta approach 'em on their level. Try an' consider their point of view."_  
  
_"Learned that quick back in your beat cop days, huh?"_  
  
_The detective tilted his head. That familiar oddity passed over his wrinkled and scarred features, dipping into the folds of his marred flesh before Nora could discern what it was. "You ... you could say that."_  
  
And then Danse raised his laser rifle and commanded, " _Lower your weapons_ , **_NOW_**!"  
  
She could almost hear Nick's aged voice growling, _"You idiot!"_  
  
Piqued interest faded to bitter _fight or flight_. Bullets erupted simultaneously. Two clean shots tucked just behind their ears and the settlers were felled with gazes unfettered - a breeze had simply come to collect their souls before they had a chance to blink.  
  
Gone was her chance to rationalize their plan of action. Bow they were stuck in the same frenzied combat that plagued the Commonwealth's whole. Ducking behind rocks, bits of construction, even other _bodies_ to repurposed as _meat shields_. Danse seared three holes through the torso of one raider before breaking the second's back over his metal-encased leg. The pick end of Nora's axe burrowed deep into the third's foramen magnum. She had to pry the weapon away by planting her foot against the man's head, trying hard not to peer upon his darting irises as the brain's activity sputtered one final act of attempted living and sputtered to a slow, stalling stop.  
  
She stooped to become a vulture - because that's what the world had become. Live or die. Survival of the fittest. Oen man's trash, another man's treasure ... Three stimpacks. A bobby pin. Two cases of .38 bullets that, though they wouldn't cut it for her unused plasma revolver, would go very much appreciated by Valentine. One of the settlers had a satchel tucked under his arm. She carefully undid the strap, slid her acquired items inside, made to step away ... and backtracked, kneeling against the cooling corpse.  
  
His eyes remained open. A gradual fog began clouding their once-vibrant grays and they reminded her so much of Nate's that Nora's throat hardened into an impassible lump. "I'm sorry," she choked, and brushed her palm against his face until his vision was shut to the world.

This same treatment was extended to each victim. Caustic acid burned her larynx, forced down by hard swallows and resurging for each man and woman she crouched beside. When bestowing her apology to the raiders' bodies, Danse heaved a disgruntled note. Disgust was his prevalent theme.  
  
"That human _filth_ doesn't deserve an ounce of compassion," he spat.  
  
Nora bristled. "Did you even stop to consider why they might have _turned_ to that kind of life?"  
  
His laugh was baleful. Cold. "Are you going to _defend_ those worthless _fiends_?" The finger of his power armored hands unfurled in the corpses' direction. "It was _their choice_ to become what they were. They could have merged into a settlement, perhaps found some honorable work that would provide them the caps they required for a sustainable life. To prey upon another human being is _despicable_. Completely _avoidable_. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior."  
  
Nora burned.  
  
___________  
  
Jenny and I started first grade at the same time. Same school. Same class. Same teacher. Same Bostonian jackass kids.  
  
They taunted me. A lot. I was kind of a tall girl, so that was predictable. It wasn't something that surprised me, really. Dad's friends would playfully rib me constantly for my height, so I guess I could say I was prepared. I'd let their insults roll off my shoulders and rebuke with jeers aimed at their own insecurities. A lot of times they'd run off and tell the teacher and cry and cry and cry ... and of course, I'd get in trouble. Mom and Dad got called so many times, and for each opportunity they'd laugh it off and explain the situation. And everything was dismissed. I'd get let off with a warning.  
  
Jenny was ... different, though.  
  
She was vulnerable.  
  
They bullied her because of her glasses. Because of the way she stuck to corners like a ghost. How she would kind of huddle to herself when eating snacks or how she played by her lonesome during recess. Even after I gave her my chocolate bar and introduced myself, she was still remarkably silent. We'd engage in a warm conversation for a few minutes, then she would drift off. Vacating her own body, almost. The lights were on but nobody was home.  
  
I'd defend her, of course. Whenever I was around, the jackasses would keep at bay. But the second I wasn't there anymore ...  
  
On the third day I found her crying behind the swing set. There was road rash on her cheek. Through her blubbering, she told me that one of the second graders pushed her.  
  
So I found that asshole and decked him in the gut. _Hard_.  
  
It was a little trickier for my parents to get me out of _that_ situation.  
  
From that point on, I would extend an invitation for Jenny to come home with me. Hang out, do homework together, listen to the Silver Shroud broadcast with the family. Sometimes even eat dinner with us if she got permission from her folks (and that was a hangup sometimes because she always seemed so _afraid_ to talk to them. I thought it was weird.) Her initial reaction was to remain meek and shy, like she didn't want to be there despite how eager she appeared to want to get out of her own apartment.  
  
But the more time she spent with me ... with my family ... the more loud she became. Jenny smiled more. Her cheeks gained some color - rosy and pink with distinguished dimples that never went away because she was always _smiling_ and _laughing_. At school we were inseparable. She was my shadow, and I her defender. The other kids kept their distance. If they approached it was only because they _had to_ for some reason or another, and it was _always_ under the context of fear from _me_.  
  
We were the meek and the strong. The wolf and the rabbit. Where one's strength floundered, the other's provided. She was a braniac. Freaking amazing at math and (later on) at science. I adored literature, history, and a good game of dodge ball.  
  
Jenny and I flourished. Siblings minus the blood connection.  
  
With how close we were, I should have seen the signs.  
  
__________  
  
Danse warned her that there would be Institute Synths. Considering his area of expertise, she probably shouldn't have second-guessed him. It still came as a kind of shock to stumble upon a room of disassembled Protectron units. Their internal circuitry and vital gears had all been removed. All that remained were their exterior shells. _Was this really what they did_? Ransack technology? Take what they needed, what they could use later, and leave everything else to rot?  
  
In Nick's case, it was understandable. Limited resources, definitively lacking the human regenerative ability ... When his hand was mangled at Fort Hagen, he'd casually swapped it for an undamaged duplicate carefully removed from one of his offline brethren. He needed help getting the new appendage on, of course, so Nora got a first-hand preview of synth construction.  
  
But this? There was a difference between killing because you had to eat, so to speak, and killing for the thrill. She imagined this scene was a horrific genocide to a robot.  
  
Nora was suddenly glad she'd sent Nick off on his merry way. And she was _definitely_ content that Codsworth stayed behind in Sanctuary Hills.  
  
"Look at these wrecks," Danse sighed. Righteous Authority's muzzle pointed downwards. "It appears as though the facility's automated security's already been dealt with."  
  
Who said sarcasm was a horrible choice? "Less security is good security," Nora quipped with a tiny smile.  
  
If she was hoping Danse would smile, the Sole Survivor was sorely mistaken. "Less security is _definitely not_ a good thing," he replied dryly. "Look at the evidence. There isn't a single spent ammunition casing or a drop of blood in sight. These robots were assaulted by Institute Synths."  
  
She thumbed her fireaxe handle's protective coating and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "Yeah, I gathered that."  
  
The paladin appeared surprised. "I assume you've encountered a few in your travels already."  
  
"You'd assume right, considering what we're trying to accomplish." Nora was careful to include the _we_ in her sentence. It felt good, even a bit rebellious, to include Nick in her conversation with a Brotherhood of Steel soldier. "Fort Hagen was crawling with them."  
  
"Fort Hagen?"  
  
"Where we tracked my baby's kidnapper." Just the thought of Kellogg was making her spew fire. Rage bubbled into her vision ... turned it red ... Nora blinked it away and said, with a voice firm enough to deter Danse's impending torrent of inquiries, "I'll be on the lookout."  
  
At least Danse was bright enough to catch on and not pursue his line of questioning. "Roger that. Let's move out."  
  
First one room, then another. Their paths were consistently blocked by fallen debris. Just how far did the nuclear bomb's aftershock travel, or was this the result of years of deterioration and neglect? Likely a culmination of the two. Too bad mankind lacked the foresight to invent self-repairing buildings.  
  
On second thought, considering how some stray Mister Handies turned out ... maybe that was a bad idea.  
  
Eventually they came upon a locked door. Sitting just opposite of it was the only functioning terminal in the room. _One plus one equals two ..._ She set upon hacking the computer, grateful for the little guidelines Nick provided while prowling the ruined Fort Hagen (because turrets were so much easier to manage when they were deactivated). A line of brackets here ... a dud removal there ...  
  
System breach.  
  
Door unlocked.  
  
That ear-ruining technological spur of dialogue. "Movement detected."  
  
Blue lasers went flying. One pierced the terminal and Nora barely had enough time to launch backwards into the wal as it sparked, sizzled, and exploded. The barrage continued through the smoke. She took cover behind a file cabinet that probably wasn't happy about it's status as a shield. Streamlines of red merged with the flood of bluish-white. Danse's form advanced against enemy fire.  
  
"Bogies, 12 o' clock!"  
  
Still holding the axe, she fumbled for her revolver. It wouldn't make sense to go charging up against weapons like those with an edged blade ... if she could only ... just ... _get the damned gun out_! The hammer was hung up on a torn segment of her jumpsuit. Nora couldn't get it out.  
  
Metal _clack clack_ -ed on linoleum floor. Closer. Too close. Then -  
  
"Civilian, to your left!"  
  
_FUCK this gun._  
  
"God DAMN it!" Nora snarled, leaping to her feet. She was guessing on her stalker's location, unable to see past the filing cabinet until she rounded its protective edges. The heavy blade went flying, broad edge seeking - _and a flash of glowing yellow orbs that made Nora's breath hitch and arms ache, too late to stop her weapon's momentum_ \- and finding the neck of circuitry thinly veiled by a layer of plastic skin too pale and rubbery to be human.  
  
It uttered a king of gurgling noise. She thought it similar to the hissing white noise of a television that couldn't get a satellite signal. Clattering noisily to the ground, bare right hand drifting skyward as if to grab the hand of some unseen angel before it, too, fell limp.  
  
The Sole Survivor was on the ground in an instant. Hands on the synth's shoulders, teal eyes wide in disbelief and horror while the yellow oculars of her victim flickered and died. "Nick!" She shook him, all but screaming. " _Nick_!"  
  
No.  
  
The skin was too smooth, the features too young. No telltale scars. No manufactured crinkles that made him a fascimile of his humanoid form. Not Nick. Not -  
  
An errant beam of blue nipped at her side, burned fabric and just sear the uppermost layer of skin. Nora hissed, snatched the Institute rifle off the _Institute Synth_ 's body, and joined in the gunfight.  
  
When the last enemy lay in a crumpled heap, Danse stared at her with concerned disappointment. Nora glared in return. She marched on wordlessly, and in the following rooms she quickly erased his lingering reconsideration by exerting a new form of brutality against those Institute bastards.  
  
________  
  
  
After two years, Jenny's rousing temperment began to dwindle. There was a new fear in her eyes. Something dark and frightened, the tendrils snapping back into shadows under the luminescent scrutinization of my gaze. She retracted. Got quiet when the topic of 'family' was brought up. While Jenny spoke sparingly of her mother and father beforehand, now she completely avoided any conversation about her home.  
  
Mom asked if everything was alright. Dad grew quietly suspicious. At night when they thought I was asleep, I'd hear them talk about 'all that arguing downstairs' and 'maybe we should call the police'. Three times I remember waking up to flashing reds and blues outside. At each moment they cops would leave empty-handed and looking helpless.  
  
There were late night visitors at the apartments. Sometimes a car door slamming would jostle me from a deep sleep and I'd peer out. Men in dark clothes. Men in baggy jeans. Some women in clothes that were too tight or too revealing, but mostly men. Usually they would walk right on into the complex, but sometimes they would meet Jenny's mom or dad outside before entering.  
  
Strange noises from downstairs. Like people wrestling. I was young at the time. I didn't know ...  
  
And then one night I observed Jenny's mom leave with two of those strange-clothed men. That was the last time I ever saw her.  
  
The police came the next day. Through my childish eavesdropping, I found out that Jenny's dad filed a missing persons report. Jenny's mom ran away, he said. Something about drugs and a word called pros-tit-oo-shun.  
  
"They _know_ he did it," hissed Dad to Mom one night after dinner, when I was washing up in the bathroom. "They _know_ it but they can't do a damned thing. Not a shred of _fucki_ \- "  
  
"Language, darling."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
Mom insisted that Jenny sleep over more often, and Jenny was happy to comply. It was the middle of summer and was wearing long-sleeved shirts and jeans. No skirts. No blouses. I knew she was dying of heat. Even her pajamas were long. And ... she acted _wounded_. A scared animal, cornered and fearful for her life. I tried to ask but Jenny would dodge every question thrown at her until she'd just clam up entirely.  
  
One week her dad came. He was upset that Jenny was staying over so much. He and Dad argued in the hallway until a neighbor threatened to call the cops unless they piped down.  
  
Jenny went home early that night. With her blanket bundled underneath her arm, she looked back at me with such a wistful and heartbreaking stare, her mouth twisted downwards so far ... and I felt it in my gut. Dread. Knotting horror. Fingers pricking at my heart, spurring movement into my feet. Something was wrong. I didn't know what. But Jenny was hurting and I couldn't ... I couldn't let it happen.  
  
I heard her father shouting that night and I imagined Jenny curled in a corner, crying and afraid.  
  
I devised a plan.  
  
___________  
  
Nora thought that the moment she earned Paladin Danse's respect was when she hauled his injured ass into the control room and smashed the engine start button as Institute Synths crawled out of the woodwork. The mechanical door locked behind them. Their enemies scrabbled at the door - striking it with shock batons, firing at it with their high0tech guns. A few made for the observation window, intent to break it but leaving nothing but scorch marks where their weapons bounced off.

None of them knew what was coming until the engine vomited fire onto the charred earth awaiting below. There were cries - "Error!" "System malfunctioning!" "System critical!" - and sparks and a horrid stench of burning coolant and torched steel -

 _Not Nick. These aren't like Nick. Not like him. Nope._  
  
She wanted to believe that. She really did.  
  
Even when she and Danse ascended floors on the elevator, even after they found the Deep Range Transmitter gripped tightly in the curled, steel fingers of one of the Gen 2 synths ... even after Danse turned to her, voicing his gratitude for saving him back there and -  
  
"I want you to think about something," Paladin Danse broke his formal code of communication. He sounded a little more down-to-earth now. A little more human. It shocked her out of her current reverie. "About your ... _friend_. That detective."  
  
Her hackles raised immediately. "I already told you, he's not - "  
  
"The thing is, he _is_." Danse silenced her argument with a wave of his massive hand. Everything was so much bigger when encased in power armor. She was certain his palm could swallow her head whole. "He might be ... _different_. And I'll give him credit where it's due. He doesn't hide behind a false charade. He knows exactly what he is and does _not_ try to hide it. Not like those newer model synths ... "  
  
On their way to Fort Hagen, Nick and her bumped into two Arts. One claimed the other was a synth, and the other fervently denied it. That encounter ended in bloodshed, with the doppleganger slain by the real one despite all attempts to calm them both down ... and Nora had reeled after the fact. Not because of the death, no. But because one of them was so obviously _human_ but was a _fake_ human. It blew her mind. She'd stared numbly at the scene until Nick snapped her out of it.

"Considering his physical attributes, however, it would be difficult for your friend Valentine to masquerade as anything but what he is."  
  
Nora thought back to the many times she watched him fiddle with a loose screw in his damaged hand. Or how his idle hands would force him to tug a wire in his neck when he couldn't smoke.  
  
She swallowed. "What are you getting at, Paladin?"  
  
"I will ... _admit_ that his current state, and your current objective, dictates some appreciation for his character. But how long do you think this will last?" Her quizzical stare acted as permission for him to carry on. "In spite of his actions that would state otherwise, he is a _synth_. Created and manufactured by the Institute. Artificial intelligence. On a - ah - _biological standpoint_ , if you will, Valentine is no different than the countless abominations crawling their way through the Commonwealth. And everything that is technological is fallible."  
  
Danse led her to the elevator leading outside. She was reluctant, at first, to step in. But it wasn't like there was a choice ...  
  
"A gun can jam, no matter how well you maintain it. Radio towers lose signals during storms. My very own power armor can seize up at inopportune times depending on the environment. And I have no doubt that you've seen a few pre-war Protectrons fire on civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time."  
  
Nora watched the elevator's floor display wobble with no rhyme or reason. Once the light cut off and the doors opened to a warm and humid gust, a semi-robotic voice announced their arrival to the surface. Though it was more or a _Pffszzttt Floor_. Even the fucking elevator was agreeing with Danse ... and she had to dwell on the idea. What really _was_ it that kept the elevator from short-stopping and careening back down, crushing them in the process? What if Codsworth had taken one-too-many rocks to the noggin' and had attacked Nora on sight instead of welcoming her back to the world?  
  
"Machines _malfunction_. They break down. Metal rusts. Wires deteriorate. The same synapses that dictate movement can command murder. And like any terminal, they can be _hacked_." Danse's gaze was glued to her. Nora couldn't match his gaze. "For your current mission, I understand the essential nature of your relationship. You are looking for your son, and perhaps right now that robotic sleuth is exactly what you need. But do not for one _instant_ forget what he is, and what he is capable of."  
  
She wanted to fend him off. To defend Nick. But .. damn it if the Brotherhood soldier didn't have a point. She had to be careful, had to ...  
  
_What in the hell are you thinking, Nora?_  
  
Nick's hand on her shoulder at the Red Rocket. Nick, delving into Vault 111 with her to retrieve her husband's putrid corpse for burial. Nick ... coming back to her when she refused to go to Sanctuary, setting up camp to keep her warm and lending his coat for added protection against the elements.

 _Nick dressed in police BDUs, receiving the folded flag before Jenny's casket, the briefest touch of his fingers, eyes tired and lips straining and -_  
  
"I'll keep it in mind," Nora replied numbly. She blinked and shook away the cool chill of the graveyard's memory, turning to nod earnestly in Danse's direction. "I understand your concern, I really do ... and I will keep it in mind, I promise. But ... I have a little more faith in him than is probably warranted."  
  
"So long as you understand the potential threat, I can rest easy."  
  
"And ... " A deep, long breath. "About ... earlier. Last night. I'm sorry, truly. We got off on the wrong foot."  
  
Something so rare and delicate crossed their paths. _Danse was smiling_. Just a little, but it counted. "To be completely truthful, I would have reacted similarly if a stranger was threatening to kill one of my teammates." The paladin's fingers rested on Righteous Authority. "Which brings me to a different matter. First and foremost ... This mission was sloppy. We were outnumbered and unprepared far more frequently than I am comfortable with. But ... your extra gun gave us the force we needed. I'm not sure I could have accomplished the mission alone."  
  
Nora grinned, big and bright. "I thought we worked well as a team."  
  
"As did I, once you were able to get your head in the game." Her juvenile beam was replaced by an irritant frown. " _But_ it's a refreshing change to work with a civilian who can follow orders properly. Now, if you'll hand me the Deep Range Transmitter ... ."  
  
_Back to cordial and militaristic, I see_. "Of course."  
  
"Now ... " Danse's expression transformed into something more stern and serious. Nora wouldn't have thought it possible. "As far as the second matter goes, I wanted to make you a proposal."  
  
"A proposal? Christ, Danse, we haven't even had a first date yet."  
  
It was meant in jest, but she watched with a smirk as Danse's face flashed red. Embarrassed? Or just angry? "We had a _lot_ thrown at us back there. Our op could have ended in disaster, but you kept your cool and handled it like a soldier. There's no doubt in my mind that you've got what it takes."  
  
The grin returned. "I _am_ a General, after all."  
  
He didn't appear amused. "The way I see it, you've got a choice. You could spend the rest of your life wandering from place to place, trading an extra hand for a meager reward. Or ... you could _join_ the Brotherhood of Steel, and make your mark on the world. So what do you say?"  
  
Nora didn't quite backpedal, but she took enough steps back to spread the space between them. "As it stands, Danse, I'm already knee-deep in leading a faction out of their grave." Her hands moved to touch the head of her axe just in time for her right leg to start aching, shooting small muscle spasms from her ankle to her knee. Rolling thunder announced the presence of a faint green smog approaching from the south. _A Rad Storm? Now?_ "I ... appreciate the offer. Really, I do. But ... for now, I think I'm going to have to pass. My plate is full as it is."  
  
The politest way to say, 'No.'

She fell under Danse's watchful gaze. After a long, silent moment (in which she thought he was going to whip Righteous Authority out and splay the broken concrete ground with her blood), the paladin allowed his weapon to fall neutral at his side and extended one giant palm her way.  
  
"I understand," he told her with disappointment in his voice. "Realize, however, that this offer will not expire. If you happen to change your mind, you will know where to find us. And I will look forward to it."  
  
Nora tentatively gripped his oversized armored fingers with her own long, delicate ones. "If not at the police station, just follow the giant air ship, am I right?"  
  
"You could say that." The twitch of an almost-absent smile. His grip was immense. She worried he would crush her hand. "Farewell, civilian."  
  
" _Nora_ ," she corrected. "Detective-in-training."  
  
The little jab didn't go unnoticed, but thankfully he only reacted with a knitting together of his large, bushy eyebrows. "Farewell, _Nora_. I hope our paths cross again one day, and I wish you the best of luck in searching for your child. If ever your trail wanes, you know where to find the Brotherhood of Steel for help."  
  
She parted ways with him slowly. Once Nora heard his heavy footfalls vanish into the whirling winds of the oncoming storm, she broke into a brisk, uneven jog. It was still early - late afternoon at best, with the sun still patrolling slightly past it's zenith. But the storm would make everything dark, and she had some miles separating her, Nick Valentine, and Dogmeat.  
  
With luck, she could get there before the rain started.

 


	3. B&E To Soothe the Soul

Courtesy of her pre-war employment status, Nora was by no means out of shape. Whatever muscle tone and hardened sinew was lost through cryostasis had been rebuilt in the weeks following her awakening. Jogging from one end of the Commonwealth to the other, wrestling with deathclaws and mutant bears and raiders on minimal food and rest (even with Nick mother hen-ing her every step of the way) did 'wonders'. But here and now, the woman was catching herself, steadying her pace. Panting, gasping through the clouding atmospheric thickness and the extra work demanded by her aching leg.  
  
Ten minutes into her run and Nora began favoring her left side. Another five and she'd slowed to a hasty walk, all but limping stiff-leggedly. Sharp daggers slung their way from the bottom of her ankle up her calf, searing around the bone for an added sensation of breaking. Nora was just shy of Cambridge PD when she stepped a little too sloppily and landed on her back.  
  
And there she remained for some time. Winded, catching breath. Hurting, regaining composure. Tired. Tired beyond measure. Not physical exhaustion but mental ... _blah_. Weariness. Nora blinked once - sky bright, tendrils of clouds needling across the bright blue. Blinked twice - an olive green aura; sickly; the precursor to some wretched thunderstorm. A distant bolt of lightning kickstarted her Pip-Boy into high gear. Frantic clicking that slowed and sped with each ebb and flow of the storm's outbursts. If Nora didn't have the sense to pop a Rad-X on the way here, she'd be a lot more worried.  
  
They must have stripped Cambridge clean of feral ghouls during the attack on the Brotherhood. She was certain they'd be crawling all over her by now. Or maybe because she was so still, they thought her another lifeless corpse among the many. No other bogies around, then. A mongrel would sniff her out in a heartbeat. She didn't event want to _think_ of what a deathclaw would do. (Nora had enough recurring nightmares of that day in Concord to last a lifetime.)  
  
A dank scent of mildew clung heavy to her surroundings - not that fresh, watery smell you picked up just before a summer rain. This was ... tainted, hinted with something like rotting eggs or pollution. Rad Storms were nasty little things. Came on fast and left without so much as a courtesy ass-slap. Nora was surprised it hadn't caught her on the way to Cambridge.  
  
The thunder was getting louder. The odor was heavier. Her leg was screaming a little less when in a resting position, but it would holler all over again the moment she got up. _I can afford a minute, I think._ She squeezed shut her eyes. _Another minute. Then I'll go. I swears it._  
  
Maybe.  
  
She tried to move and her limbs would not accommodate. Nora waited a moment and tried again. After the third attempt she just ... lay there. Wind began to pick up. It howled through the eroded cracks of demolished buildings, whistled above debris piles amassed through the centuries. Wailed. Like a baby. Like Shaun.  
  
Maybe ... if she just stayed here ...  
  
Maybe ... closed her eyes ...

Maybe she could remember Shaun's babbling laughter as she reached over the crib to play with him. Nora would scoop him up, talk baby to him, hold his writhing limbs high in the air to swoop him down low again. _"Wheeee! Airplane Shaun, coming in for landing! Wheeee! Airplane Shaun to Tower 1! Landing strip in sight!"_  
  
_"Tower 1 to Airplane Shaun!"_ Nate would creep into the bedroom, warmth cascading the tired wrinkles aging his flawed face. _"We are ready to receive you! C'mon down!"  
  
_ He'd stretch out his arms - the cavernous scar dragging from his bicep to forearm catching the sun's strange angles. Nora would 'fly' Shaun into his father. And he'd nestle his nose into her Shaun's, her _son's_ , neck while the baby laughed and laughed and laughed ... inhaling deep - that newborn baby smell that didn't fade for the first several months. Such an odd thing to coddle. But heavenly. Nostalgic. A reminder of what they had - a reminder of the life they'd brought into this world together. Her mother always said that scent was _precious_ , and she hadn't lied.  
  
She huffed deeply, expecting the sweet and savory odor to fill her olfactories to the brim.  
  
Ozone entered her lung instead. Ozone and trash and _death_ and **_not Shaun he isn't here he's gone and Nate's dead and Shaun's probably de ... -_**  
  
Nora balked at the pain - at that knot threatening to overwhelm her ability to breath. A deep, solid thing like a boulder roosted in her chest cavity, rolled back and forth ...  
  
She wanted so much to believe that Shaun was alive. Concord, then Diamond City, then _Nick Valentine_ had given her hope. They practically threw it in her face. Puked it all over the place. But the crushing reality was never easy to swallow. Abducted victims that aren't found within the first 48 hours usually turn up dead. That rare chance dropped exponentially when it came to children and infants: maltese falcons, all of them. Pre-War Boston was no stranger to missing kids and adults alike, what with Eddie Winter's ilk domineering the streets and wretched crowds taking over where smiling neighbors once stood. Now subtract the rough character of an overcrowded city and add irradiated monsters with claws and teeth as big as your arm and chem-fueled bandits with an urge to fuck you and kill you - and not necessarily in that order.  
  
Impossible.  
  
Her eyes burned, demanded release. Nora refused, instead closing them to the overpowering Rad Storms's violent green glow, biting her lip -  
  
_"I can't - I can't - "  
  
Boston's night air nipped warmly at exposed skin. Mid-July. Sky clear. Stars paling in contrast to the blaring city's lights below - hiding from their tenacity, their relentlessness. Red beacons flashed on either side of her. Brighten. Dim. Brighten. Dim.  
  
It shouldn't have been this easy to sneak to the hospital's helipad. Definitely not while in a wheelchair, at least. Nora had been here several times - and in none of those scenarios, until now, had she ever been one of the facility's patients.  
  
Her cheeks were hot and damp. Fear in her chest. Emptiness. Loneliness. One arm in a sling. A leg in a cast. Every deep breath brought a thousand daggers into her bones. A hot mess.  
  
The delicate fingers that touched her good shoulder gave a gentle squeeze. They were attatched to a sorrowful set of bespectacled eyes as red as Nora's own. This stranger ... this friend ... had been weeping along with her.  
  
"Those are quitting words, Nora," Jenny whispered in choked empathy. Every word was a struggle, but despite the stumbles they bleated on. "You ... you can't quit. You can't. Quitting's for the weak. That's what you told me. If ... if we quit, we're weak. But you and me, with everything we've been through together ... we're **strong**. Stronger than everybody else. So - so you **can't** \- "  
  
" - quit now."  
  
Nora stirred. No longer was she bathed in the cacophony of the city. Instead a harsh, brilliant white light bathed her in sterilized instruments and men with surgical masks. The aching pain in her limbs was replaced with the ongoing, cramping agony of her abdomen. Legs spread. Breathing intensified.  
  
Through blurred vision, she could see him. Nate. His hair was all red curls, his eyes the reflection of a crisp, pristinely still sea during a cloudless afternoon. The pale bronze tone of his flesh rand hand-in-hand with the lengthy time he'd spent outdoors during his time in the military. He was a man of Scottish descent. Their child was going to be a Russian-Scottish-American mutt. She hoped he'd have Nate's colorful lockes.  
  
"Don't quit now," he crooned to her, the fine edges of his sentences ringing with a Scottish twang. Nate's large, marred hands found her's and held them tight. She gripped harder through waves and waves or horrid discomfort. Her husband grimaced but did not wane or withdraw. "S"almost over, babe. You're almost there. Ya just gotta push a little more ... "  
  
Ripping torment. Shearing agony. Nora gasped because she could do nothing else, sucking dry her nonrebreather's oxygen reservoir while Nate gaped wide eyed and the doctors moved frantically between her legs.  
  
"Doctor, she's - "  
  
_Nora jerked. Orbs snapped open. For the briefest moment she could see Nate still - his registering terror lingering for but a second until it was swallowed whole by the inauspicious green glow above. She blinked once, twice, five times and nothing changed. Had she dozed off? Not for long ... not really. The Rad Storm loomed a little further overhead now but she wasn't yet in the rain shaft. But she could hear it coming ... Precipitation was already starting in the west and her geiger counter was positively clacking like an angry swarm of crickets.  
  
_Gotta ...  
  
Gotta get up.  
  
_ Nora rolled to her knees. Getting up on her left foot was easy. Her right was difficult. Everything below the knee groaned but with the right amount of effort and even more determination, she was able to shove off and stand fully.  
  
_Find Nick. Find Dogmeat._  
  
Her limp was slow. It probably wasn't going to get much better ... yet once she got moving, it was easy. Eas _ier_ , at least. Everything was heavy. The axe was heavy. The revolver was heavy. The Pip-Boy was heavy. Her eyelids were _especially_ weighed down.  
  
Jenny's voice, trailing through her subconscious. _"You can't quit now. Quitting's for the weak."_  
  
"I know, Jenny," Nora ushered to the whistling winds. "I know."  
  
________________  


Once upon a time, Mom locked the keys inside the apartment. And Dad was away at work. So ... that left us screwed, in a hallway, with ten bags of groceries. Most of them frozen perishables. Oh, and did I mention the landlord wasn't home?  
  
She fretted for a while, cursing in Russian. After taking several glances back and forth down the hallway, I witnessed an interesting and potentially life-altering sight. She reached into her hair and procured a bobby pin. And then she manipulated the door's keyhole like the strings of a violin. A few seconds annnnnnnd ... _presto_! The bolt clicked and Mom pushed it open.  
  
I was _thrilled_.  
  
From the time we got inside to the time I went to bed, I begged Mom to show me her parlor trick. Her refusal was adamant. So naturally I kept on her about it the next day. And the next day. And the next day ...  
  
A week later, she caved.  
  
I didn't learn until several years later that this _parlor trick_ was, in fact, a method that kept my mother and her family fed back in the mother land. They were very poor, affording little food, and got by on petty thievery and odd jobs. Mom's parents didn't want that to be her life ... so they reached out. And through the tending of some very fragile connections, they received a very special invite to America from distant family members several ancestors apart.  
  
It was _luck_.  
  
Luck that Mom got here. Luck that Mom knew how to lockpick. Luck that Mom taught _me_ how to perfect the art.  
  
Which lead me to this point ... standing in front of Jenny's apartment a little past midnight on a weekend. The hallway was dark and empty. Everybody was asleep. Through the door I could hear the television blaring ... but I also caught wind of very loud seesaw snoring. Her dad, probably. I worked the lock, tamed the bolt, and slowly, _quietly_ , nudged open the door ...  
  
I was right. Dead asleep. Little warning bells chimed in my skull at the sight of his arm. There was a band around the one visible to me - tightened around the flesh in the middle of his bicep. Beer cans. Burned spoons. Didn't know what that meant. Didn't care. Didn't _matter_.  
  
Only Jenny did.  
  
I crept through the apartment - a silent Christmas mouse. In retrospect, I probably could have stomped my way through the place. With how loud the T.V. was, some obnoxious footsteps weren't gonna wake him up.  
  
Jenny was in her room, and my second hypothesis was proven correct. She was a curled bundle of blankets atop her bed. A noisy, weeping mass of comforter that shook and shuddered and groaned. My steps became faster, more confident. I climbed on the bed. The mattress' changing position and gentle creak alerted Jenny, who yelped and shrank backwards. Almost rolled right off the bed, too, but her hand flew from the blanket and I caught it, pulled her back up.  
  
She was heaving now. Great big terrified wheezes almost the copycat of an asthma attack. Pleading and whimpering so fearfully that it broke my heart and sent warnings into my lizard brain. Throwing the blanket so that I could be included in its confines, I placed a finger to her lips and went, "Shhhhh."  
  
It was dark under there, but I could imagine her big eyes growing wide. "Nor?"  
  
A grin overtook my cautious frown. " _Hiiiii_ , Jen Jen."  
  
"Wh-what are you _doing_ in ... how did you get ... ?"  
  
My fingers intertwined with her's and I gave them a light tug. "I'm gonna take you away from here."  
  
________  
  
Cambridge PD was a thing of the past. The C.I.T. was here and now. And ... while she wanted to say it was a right _mess_ , that would be kind of far from the truth. In the whole Commonwealth - or at least, as much of the Commonwealth that she'd seen thus far - the university was standing strong and, for the most part, completely intact. _Ridiculous_.  
  
The ghost of Boston's past loomed like some marble giant to her left. Domed tops, white columns that shone lime now with the Rad Storm's rolling tendrils, windows that were _somehow_ still intact. Even well maintained. Somewhat. There were bullet holes here and there but as far as anything else in this wretched land, the C.I.T. was _gorgeous_.  
  
Somewhere off to her right were the Polymer Labs. Up ahead was the Charles River and the once-functional drawbridge that allowed ship freights to pass freely down the channel. It wasn't quite in working order anymore ... not with that cargo barge rammed into it. Even in the storm's unnatural aura Nora could see the glowing torches of 'civilization'. Hoots and hollers and firing guns punctuated every moment of silence left behind from the growling thunder above. Nick didn't lie. Raider rats were _crawling_ over the vessel. A heavy accent of rust, blood, and something sour tickled her nostrils. She cringed.  
  
_Speaking of Nick ..._  
  
Of course the sleuth wouldn't leave a trace of him behind. He didn't want to risk the chance of being tracked by the Brotherhood, which made sense ... but it also left her clueless. _Hah. Clue._ She could, however, feel eyes boring into her skull. Nora definitely wasn't alone. Question was ... did they belong to friend or foe?  
  
Movement to the east. A shadow drifted past the C.I.T.'s windows. She thought it was something big ... but she could have been mistaken. After all, Nora was in the process of trademarking a new brand of exhaustion. She peered closer, taking a few tentative steps forth. The shadow returned - or was it a new one? And, oh yeah, definitely big. _Was it green?_ But everything looked green with this fucking _storm_.  
  
Nora swallowed. Then, with great hesitation, "Nic - "  
  
Pale fingers clamped around her mouth. " _Shhh shhh_."  
  
Nora's kneejerk reaction blared on triumphantly. She drove her elbow into the offender puling her backwards, only to hiss agonal retribution herself. Whatever she hit was _hard_. Fucking really _hard_. And metal, from the way it clanged -  
  
" _Ow_ ," hissed the gruff male voice at her back - old and gritty, a throwback to some noire movie. He kept the octave low but punctuated enough for Nora to understand each and every syllable. "That _hurt_ , Doll."  
  
From behind his enclosed fingers (strangely warm in spite of the solid steel framework making up for Nick's skeleton), Nora cut loose a tirade of muffled curses that, if allowed sunlight and oxygen to grow, would have made a whole convent of nuns blush.  
  
Her rant stuttered to a slow, miserable death. Nick waited an extra few breaths before asking with amusement, "Are you done now?" Nora nodded. "Keep your voice down. We're not alone."  
  
As he withdrew, the sole survivor sucked in a breath and whirled. She couldn't quite maintain an irate composition when she wasn't really _mad_ as much as she was _grateful_ it was Nick and not some freak, but Nora did mouth, ' _You are an asshole_ ,' and flipped him off, to which the detective proudly smiled. He wasn't _just_ an asshole. He was an _endearing_ asshole, and she was glad as **hell** to see him.  
  
Panting at her feet gave away Dogmeat's presence. The pooch pranced and smacked his lips together until Nora gave him all the attention in the world. Basically, she dropped to her knees and welcomed his big, sloppy kisses with quiet appraisals. "Didja look out for this ol' bag of circuits for me? Didja? Who's a good _boy_ , huh? Yesyouare."  
  
Metal fingers gingerly rapped her shoulder. "As adorable as this reunion is ... "  
  
Getting onto her knees had been a mistake. Her right leg protested every bit of motion so much that Nick had to hoist her up by the arm, all concerned eyes and a tight-lipped frown. She waved off his inquisition and limped forward. "What's in there?" she asked, gesturing to the university.  
  
"Super mutants."  
  
Nora flashed an 'oh for the love of god' grin and thumbed the head of her fireaxe.  
  
"They're creepin' all over the place." Nick led her through a derelict open cafe and into a series of alleys. Apartments sprang up on either side of them. At one point this would have been prime real estate with _really high_ rental prices. Now it was a squatters paradise ... if they hadn't all been boarded up or partially blockaded by debris. "I was out here on a lead before that whole Skinny Malone business. Place was empty. They musta just taken up residence here recently."  
  
Dogmeat was a shark circling them both. He would pause to sniff out the turf, mark his territory, and carry on. _Dogs will be dogs_. Nora hobbled behind the detective. "So long as we don't try and deal with them ... and, uh ... " Nick's trajectory diverted slightly north. "Isn't ... isn't Goodneigbhbor across the river."  
  
"It is, but that's not where we're gonna go right now." He pointed up. "Storm'll be on us any second."  
  
"A little bit of rain won't - _oh!_ Your circuitry - !" Duh. Duh. **_Duh_**. "Water can't be good for you."  
  
"That's actually somethin' I've been meanin' to tell ya." He threw a glance over his shoulder, examining her - and her bum leg - with one glowing yellow ocular. "Wires are waterproof and the metal doesn't fare badly when exposed to the elements. Lightweight, strong, and covered with some kind of protectant to keep the rust away. So to answer a _much earlier_ question of your's, yes, I can swim. Awkwardly though."  
  
"So ... _why_ are we stopping?"  
  
"Rad Storm. _Radiation_ storm. And you're _human_." His teeth clicked together with his observations. "Also, you look like death warmed over. And that leg ... A little bit of sleep would do ya some good. Or at least some food, water, and shelter. Getting rained on and _then_ getting sick isn't something you probably want to deal with right now."  
  
When he was right, he was right. Nora didn't feel much like protesting his benevolent nature. It warmed her core to have somebody so sweet looking after her. They stopped in front of a brick apartment complex surrounded by dead trees and watched the plywood-covered door as if it would break apart on its own.  
  
"Most of these places are sealed tight."  
  
Nick tilted his head. "So was Kellogg's house."  
  
The name stung, but Nora saw what he was getting at. " _Detective_!"  
  
"That's the title."  
  
"Are _you_ , an upstanding, _law-abiding_ , citizen, suggesting a little recreational B and E?"  
  
He preened over his metal digits, flexing the claws before his visage and scrutinizing each joint. "I'll have to decline your, ah, _boisterous_ offer, citizen." Nick stepped up to the plate, sizing up the wooden slab. "I assure you, I've a permit."  
  
Nora stared on, confused. "I have an _axe_."  
  
"It'll make too much noise. I'm not comfortable setting up shop so close to super mutant stomping grounds. Don't wanna give them a reason to come snooping."

Nick didn't need to stand on his tiptoes to get a good grip on the plywood's upper corner. He gripped hard with his metal hand and, with _just_ the one hand, was able to bend the seasoned slab downwards until it cracked in the center and gave way. The resulting hole was big enough to fit them through it if they angled through it right.  
  
He stepped back, motioned Nora to step forward, and dipped the tip of his fedora ever-so-slightly. "M'am."  
  
She chuckled. "Such a _gentleman_."  
  
"I try."  
  
"Breaking into a building for _little old me_!"  
  
Pinching through the opening would have been a far less tedious task if not for her leg. It got hung up on the corner and she had to pivot her entire body to sling it out, successfully dropping to the ground back first as a result. Nick fretted over her a little once he'd gotten inside, only straying after Nora's third dismissal. Once Dogmeat jumped in, the detective managed to work the broken wooden piece into a spot that concealed the hole they'd created. Nora had laughed.  
  
"Isn't it kind of _obvious_ the panel's broken?"  
  
"They're, uh, not exactly _well_ up here," replied Nick, tapping his skull. "Slow-witted."  
  
Fair enough.  
  
They combed through each of the rooms to ensure their safety. Not a living soul. Nora initially thought the landlords had enough sense to evict their tenants and board the places up before the bombs fell ... but that would have required some insane precognition. Besides, that theory didn't explain the skeletons. And _ho boy_ , there were a _lot_ of them.  
  
One to each apartment, _at least_. Some had multiple. Every single one of them was a portrait frozen in time. A family, still seated at the dinner table with elbows folded and hands clasped for grace. Quite a few were adults lounging in recliners facing the windows or a television set. On the second floor, they discovered a male skeleton surrounded by three females (judging from their tattered clothes) and several empty canisters of something Nick called 'jet'.  
  
Then there were the suicides.  
  
Floor 2, room 2B: a noose hanging from an exposed wooden i-beam with a pile of bones decorating the floor beneath it. Floor 1, 5A: bones in a bathtub, a razor on the ground, the porcelain stained with a ring of morbid brown. Floor 3, 3C: sitting at a desk, gun in hand, fossilized chunks on the wall. Floor 3, 1C: another gun, but four bodies - one adult and two child skeletons splayed across the living room ... and then the final victim, reclined in a sofa, with the weapon in hand. Murder-suicide. The killer had a note in his hand with words too faded to read courtesy of time.  
  
While Nora was flash-frozen in time with her now-dead husband and missing baby, was this what happened to the rest of the world? People scrambling to get inside the budget Pulowski shelters, shoving each other out the way and scrabbling at the shell desperately while death flashed on the horizon. Young men and women determined to not die virgins, engaging in drug-fueled orgies before the reaper came knocking? Whole families deciding that it might be better to end the lives of their children before the horrors of nuclear devastation rained a different kind of travesty upon them?  
  
Maybe this place ... _these_ places ... were boarded up because people were afraid of what was inside. Superstition ran rampant in the souls of everyday settlers. A place with too many dead bodies would be quarantined as 'haunted' and locked down. Not everybody wanted to face this kind of thing.  
  
It was with a somber mood that they found a _clear_ room. No skeletons. No blood. No _furniture_ or _appliances_. One of the available rentals left vacant when the world ended.  
  
Nick perked, his voice twisting into the shadow of humor to chase away the bad vibes left from their meandering. "Think we should go fill out an application, Doll?" he jeered.  
  
____________  
  
A little under twenty minutes later, rain began pelting off the roof. It came down slow and steady at first. Then the sky ripped open and a curtain of water was crashing on tiles and brick masonry.  
  
"Your leg ... ," Nick began. He'd been doting on her the second they decided this would be their 'shop' for the evening.  
  
"It's an old wound," she reassured him. Nora found a good place to sit along the wall in the living room. Dogmeat nosed into her lap, all happy ears and wagging tail. "And a weatherbone. Pain in my ass, if you ask me." She plucked off her right boot carefully, hitched her jumpsuit up to her knee, and heaved a whooshing relief. "That feels _so_ much better."  
  
Nick's luminescent oculars cast an ambient light upon her bared appendage. He hissed and loomed closer, reaching to touch it and drawing back immediately as if realizing how inappropriate that might appear. _Such a gentleman_. "What did you _do_?"  
  
"Seems you an' me got something in common, Nicky." Her own fingernails traced the outline of a dark scar patterned from the bone of her ankle to just below the kneecap. With pride in her voice, the sole survivor flaunted, "I've got screws in my leg."  
  
"From _what_?"  
  
"Ancient history."  
  
He gave her a look. "What _kind_ of history?"  
  
"Broken tib-fib." After pursing her lips thoughtfully, Nora added, "Among ... other injuries."  
  
"Such as?"  
  
"A torn rotorcuff. And three broken ribs."  
  
" _Jesus_ , Doll."  
  
"Which is funny considering my leg's the only thing that really acts up when the weather turns sour. Most folks have problems with their _shoulders_ with the rotorcuff - "  
  
"How'd you manage to wind up hurting yourself so bad?" Nick pressed on. The caretaker part of him glimpsed around for some kind of painkiller - a Med-X - even though the room was searched time and time again for potential supplies.  
  
Nora wiggled her toes. "I was young," she told him. "And very stupid."  
  
He became the epitome of a scolding parent. "I'll give you that."  
  
Her hand slapped against her chest, over her heart, and she mocked being shot. "That got me _right here_ , Nicknack."  
  
Nick acknowledged the nickname by flicking his irises off and on. That always kind of threw Nora off. Sometimes he would blink - legitimately _blink_. But there were moments when he would just kind of _refresh_ his eyes. It bothered her brain. Synapses wanted so badly to recognize him as human. Then he'd go and do something like _that_.  
  
"You're not injured at all from romping around with that Brotherhood jarhead, are you?" When Nora shook her head, Nick gave a resigned sigh. "Good, good. How'd that pan out, anyhow?"  
  
"Oh, I'm officially a knight," Nora teased. "Plowing my way up the line right to being Elder in no time at all." Nick grit his teeth and the sole survivor barked a laugh. "I'm screwing with you, Nick. Danse offered me to join. I, ah, told him I was too busy to take on ranks with the Brotherhood."  
  
Danse's warning sang in her memories. She pushed them aside. _There's no need to tell Nick. No need. Not now. Not right now. Later. I can talk to him later ..._  
  
And then she saw his disapproving stare and feared her own expression may have given away underlying thoughts. "Nick ... ?" she prodded, testing the ground before stepping fully onto it. "Is, um ... is everything okay? You ... " _Why_ was she afraid? A kid afraid of getting berated? "You look upset."  
  
That seemed to pull him out of whatever funk he was in - a little too quickly. "What? Oh, no no." He corrected his disposition and even acted a little ... _flustered_ that he'd come off that way in the first place. "We've just been traveling a while now, and I figured there hasn't exactly been equitable distribution of information."  
  
_Oh god, here it comes._ He was going to pry into her life. Attempt to pull the nitty gritty details from their locked-tight closet. Her chest knotted, her breath hitched, and -  
  
"I've gotten a decent glimpse into your dirty laundry, but you still don't know a whole heck of a lot about me."  
  
Not what she expected.  
  
_I know more than you think._  
  
"I, uh, figured I'd offer to balance the board." He was quite _chipper_. With the way his penciled eyebrows rose, he was almost _giddy_. "So, there anything you want to know?"  
  
_All of it._  
  
Nora humored him with a grin, bent her good leg to prop her elbow on the knee, and leaned into the palm of her hand. "Alright, I'll bite." She cocked an eyebrow, flashed the coyest of smiles, and, "So ... Who are you, Nick?"  
  
___________  
  
_It's not him._  
  
Nora was equal parts relieved and sad to discover that. This ... this wasn't Nick Valentine, but it was. Definitely not the same man Jenny ranted endlessly about over the telephone, but it was still _him_ in a way. Not just by name, but by fragments of personality. She wondered if he held any memory of the original Nick. _Probably not._ He would've recognized her if he had.  
  
She wondered what happened to the original. With the way he up and vanished in thin air shortly after Operation Winter's End disbanded, she and the rest of her crew had their suspicions ... and the conclusion was a bitter, wretchedly sorrowful one.  
  
It didn't surprise her as much as it probably should have, given the circumstance ... but really, she hadn't actually _met_ the original Nick. Not _really_. Not the _proper_ way. They bumped into each other during a great tragedy in both of their lives, and it was a simple nod and a walk in the other direction, but ...  
  
With his charm, and his wit, his smile and his protective nature, Nora decided that it was _okay_ that this wasn't the original Nick. He _was_ original. In a way. To her. Because he was the first and only Nick Valentine she'd been able to really meet. His company was warm. She felt safe. She felt _companionship_ \- not just duty like around Preston. And it was different than being with Piper or Codsworth. Accepting. A kind of old-world familiarity, almost a kinship.  
  
Strange, to find security in the on-point moral compass of a synth with a personality lifted from a pre-war cop. His sense of justice, his _kindness_ , was unsurpassed by many she'd met thus far.  
  
_"It's a surprisingly rare trait out here sometimes. Something I've noticed you've got a fondness for. Part of the reason I've stuck around this long."  
  
"The feeling's mutual, Nick. I like having you with me."  
  
"No foolin'? You really know how to make a Synth feel welcome."  
  
_ It wasn't the first time that 'Synth' felt so out of place when talking to Nick.  
  
In the comfortable silence that followed, Nora burrowed into her satchel of goodies. Aside from stimpacks and bullets (which she'd already given to a very happy-to-get-them Valentine), she'd managed to salvage some food. And by food, she meant Cram. And by some, she meant one can.  
  
Nick found a stool and retreated to the bar-style kitchen counter to clean and reload his pipe pistol. She whistled and tossed the can his way. "Wanna go halfsies? It's not much, but it'll keep us going to Goodneighbor."  
  
It was still raining outside ... An hour later, and still going. How big was this storm?  
  
The detective gave the tin a once-over and threw it back. "I'll pass. Salted meats of questionable origin aren't exactly my strong suit."  
  
"Ya gotta eat to keep your strength up."  
  
"Doll ... " He flashed his teeth into a grin and gesticulated his robotic hand. "I'm a bot. I don't need that kind of sustenance to survive, but you do. Eat up."  
  
"Oh ... oh right." After a beat, she joked, "So, motor oil, right?"  
  
Nick sighed, but his features were borderline affectionate. " _Cute_."  
  
"Yes. I know I am."  
  
The detective snorted.

________________  
  
Nora's stomach was apparently good at hiding just how hungry it was. She'd started on the can thinking that a few bites would set her straight. But then ... it was like she was in a trance. One mouthful became another. A spoonful became a heaping serving. She wolfed down the canned meat like a starving animal, forcing herself to stop when she realized Dogmeat was watching with begging eyes. Nora surrendered the rest to him.  
  
Under Nick's request, she attempted sleep. _Attempted_. The pitter patter of rain on the rooftop would, under normal circumstances, lull her into something peaceful. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw or heard something that jolted her wide awake, full of terror. Exploding bombs. Deathclaw howls. A crying baby. A gunshot. Twice it took Nick to calm her jostled nerves. During a third attempt, he'd had to roll away from her balled fist - and she apologized profusely after her, explaining that she had a nightmare she was being attacked.  
  
Three hours later, Nora was leaning against the wall with her hands folded across her lap. Nick was back at the counter ... but now he was keeping a watchful eye to the scenery. Listening to every movement. Looking for any disturbance outside. Sometimes observing her when he thought she didn't notice.  
  
She couldn't drift off this time. No amount of brooding in silence was forcing unconsciousness upon her. But she kept quiet.  
  
Nick's stool scraped the ground. A moment later he was next to her. The heat generated from his body reminded her of her bed, hijacking the blanket when Nate wasn't there. _And he wasn't there frequently towards the end_.  
  
"Still can't sleep?" he asked.  
  
Whatever sensors he had must've been fine-tuned to pick up on the subtle changed a human's body makes when it dozes into slumberland. She marveled at the notion. "No."  
  
He hummed. She didn't understand why he scooted closer t her. Maybe he figured that a warm body being nearby might render a safe sensation. It did ... a little ... but it didn't stem the tirade of thoughts from barraging her mind.  
  
Her father once speculated that man would be the undoing of itself. And how right he had been ... And her mother, always the kind soul, dreamed that people would get it right eventually. They'd make a handful of mistakes, to be sure. But in the end, when all was said and done ... it would be okay. That was all that mattered. Humans would reunite one day. All the wrongs would be righted. So on and so forth.  
  
That people were naturally good. Sometimes you just had to look hard to find it.  
  
Nora used to believe that. Until Eddie Winter came along.  
  
"Mom would have a cow."  
  
Nick tilted his chin. "Hmm?"  
  
"Mom ... " Nora started a chuckle that tapered off. "Used to believe in the good in all people. I think if she saw the world now, she'd lose her mind. I mean, don't get me wrong, you've got good folks. Preston. Piper. A handful of settlers and whatnot. But then you have ... "  
  
"Raiders," Nick mused. "Mutants and people who'll help or stab you if the price is right." He scoured his coat pocket for a cigarette but plucked out two instead. Nora didn't need to ask. She held out her hand and accepted the gift with a little, 'Thank you'. "The world's a big coin. Sometimes it lands on a good day. Sometimes it's terrible. Other days it just keep spinning and who knows how it'll land."  
  
Nora drawled on the cancer stick. "Every day's a game of chance."  
  
"But I think you're mom might've been on the right track." He took pause to nurse his own addiction. Reaching over to casually scratch Dogmeat behind the ears, he pried, "What'd you mom do? For a living, I mean."  
  
"She wanted to be a nurse. Loved helping the needy. Volunteered in soup kitchens on the fly." Nick made an 'I knew it' sound and Nora chortled. "Instead she found she had a gift of teaching folks different languages. She offered in-house tutoring for anybody willing to learn. Different price per client, depending on their situation. Russian for Americans, and American for Russians who couldn't quite get it."  
  
"Sounds like quite the upstanding woman." The look he gave her was unreadable, but it gave Nora a warm fuzzy feeling. "Worked from home, huh?"  
  
"Yeah. Dad worked these long 12-hour shifts, so it allowed her to help reel in some cash for food while spending time with me ... She found out she loved to be the housewife of sorts. Spending time tending to her family ... she adored it, y'know? Every second she spent with me was precious, and it made her feel better because she couldn't always do the same with my dad. Wanted to watch me grow up, be there for every little thing in my life, watch me graduate ... " Nora chomped on her lip, regret spinning in her stomach.  
  
Nick caught on like the good detective he was. "Did she ... pass?"  
  
"The family curse," Nora spat out after some hesitation. "Cancer ... runs in my mother's side of the family. Skips a generation or two but always comes roaring back."  
  
"I'm sorry ... "  
  
Her head shook. "Mom and dad were trying for another kid for a few months. Had a lot of trouble and then, just a few weeks after she'd finally conceived ... _bam_ , miscarriage. Went to the doctor, thinking something was wrong. Found out she had a malignant tumor in her uterus."  
  
_Her mom and dad, coming back home from the doctor's visit ... both in tears ... both unable to explain to her what was happening ..._  
  
"She fought it for three years. Got weaker and weaker. Finally decided chemo wasn't worth a damn and chose to live out the rest of her days with family ... "  
  
_Standing before the casket. Her beautiful mother, already pale but now appearing ... **plastic**. It wasn't her. Couldn't be. But her flesh was real to the touch. And so, so cold._  
  
Nora wiped her eyes. No tears ... they were cried a long time ago. It didn't keep that familiar knot from upsetting her stomach, however. "I was thirteen when she died. It confused me more than it hurt me, honestly. One minute she was there, and then she was just ... _gone_. Dad took it a lot harder. Kept a close eye on me, insisted I come to his job with him. He was scared he'd lose me, too."  
  
Nick opened his mouth to press a question. It didn't come and the words hung, unsaid, in the air. Finally he clamped his lips together, gave her shoulder a light touch. Fuzzy butterflies. Relief. Nora closed her eyes.  
  
Then she opened them again. "Nick ... a question?"  
  
"Shoot."  
  
She pointed at him with a forefinger and thumb. "Bang." He feinted being pierced in the chest and they were all smiles for a few seconds. It was overwhelmingly euphoric and Nora wanted desperately to cling to that solace. But the more her burning query lingered, unanswered, it would burn into her gullet and fray her mind and make her doubt things she shouldn't be doubting. "That ... that Brotherhood guy. Danse." Nick's mood visibly soured, but he didn't retort. "He said a few things that ... I'll be honest, they've kinda got me thinking. And worrying. But not out of fear for me. Not me."  
  
"For who?"  
  
"For you."  
  
He blinked at her.  
  
"I get that you're ... not exactly made of bio-organic parts and whatnot. And I'm really, really not trying to be insulting, so please don't - "  
  
"It's okay, Doll. Go ahead and ask."  
  
_Gulp_. "You wouldn't ever ... _malfunction_ , right?" Before Nick could have the chance to answer, she prattled on. "I mean ... okay, so ... horror flicks, right?"  
  
"Back to that again, are we?" he attempted to lighten the mood. "You really were a film junkie."  
  
"You know it. But ... okay, so you take somebody you know. Like, even. Good friends or family. And something happens to them and then they're not the same person anymore. They try to kill you. Try to kill _everybody_. Same face, same body ... but the brain, their actions, it isn't them. And then the family, the friends ... they've all gotta make this difficult choice of, you know ... " _Putting them down._ That was what she was supposed to say. It hurt to even try.  
  
"Doll ... "  
  
"You won't, like ... " Nora flippantly waved her hands in the air, trying hard to get to the point. "You won't just ... _stop_ being you, will you? Because you're a great guy and I really don't want to ... you know ... " _Put you down._  
  
Nora found herself unable to look up. The ground became an interesting thing to study ... and all the better, because Nick couldn't quite piece together a proper answer.  
  
When the seconds became minutes, Nora's teal orbs finally averted themselves upwards. She scanned his face, looked away, thought about what she saw ... and peered again. The ridges above his eyes had raised, knitted close to the center of his forehead. His mouth - surprised, almost, but not unpleasantly. Shocked. Kind of. Like she'd said something that caught him off guard.  
  
He came down from this to lock gazes with her. In a different circumstance, under different pretenses, this might have been unbearable intimidating. Here it was ... what was the word? _Nice_?  
  
"That was one hell of a scrambled train of thought, Doll."  
  
The sarcasm caught her so off-guard that she laughed out of reflexive anxiety.  
  
But then he leveled with her. "Nora."  
  
Her name from his mouth sent chills down her spine. That was new. "Yeah?"  
  
"I wish, I really wish, I could put those fears to rest by being impossibly upbeat. That I could defy the odds, even." Metal fingers scratched his chin. "Truthfully, that paladin has a point."  
  
"Nick ... "  
  
"I can't really foresee something that might render me corrupt ... but at my core, I'm just a machine. And I could fall apart at any given moment. Go haywire. A few cards short a full deck. The likelihood of that happening's awfully low. I run self-diagnostics in my down time. But that doesn't completely eradicate the possibility. But ... " Nick cleared his throat. An entirely unnecessary task, but it was one of the many things that made him more than what he was. "I can promise you, at _least_ , that as long as I'm capable of rational thought, I'll never bring harm to you." His speech pace slowed. Head angling, curious. Fearful. Maybe. "Do you ... trust me?"  
  
"We haven't gotten this far on thinking you were gonna turn and kill me in a heartbeat," she chided.  
  
"Do you trust me?"  
  
Nora's appealing nod was as sincere as her words. "I do."  
  
Only two feet away, separated from a bit of wall and a hunk of sleeping German Shepherd ... but already, Nora felt like they were much closer. This wasn't the human Nick. This wasn't Jenny's Nick. But this was a _unique_ Nick ... the only one she knew.  
  
"Hey Nick."  
  
"Hey Doll."  
  
"It's not gentlemanly to lie." Vexation crossed Nick's features, but Nora put it to rest before words could fly. "I think you're more than a machine."  
  
His amused, "Hah," and the whirr of coolant being pushed harder through his chest gave rise to Nora's smile, and she closed her eyes.  


 


End file.
